How to be happy: The UN celebrates its first International Happiness Day with a guide on being cheery
By Katy Winter
It can be easy to get a bit blue at this time of year.
Luckily, the good people at the United Nations have declared today their very first International Day of Happiness and have even provided some helpful tips on how to be joyful for those not in the spirit of the day.
As part of the UN’s Action for Happiness campaign they have compiled a list of the key elements to happier living, based on scientific studies and surveys of what makes people feel the most content and satisfied in their life.
Smile! It is the very first International Day of Happiness
The 10 essentials for happier living can be summed up as a GREAT DREAM as seen on the UN action for happiness website
The ten keys to a more cheerful life have, rather handily, be condensed into the acronym GREAT DREAM: giving, relating, exercising, appreciating, trying out, direction, resilience, emotion, acceptance and meaning.
Unsurprisingly several of the tips focus on increasing the number and quality of relationships in our lives.
Connecting with people both on a personal, and on a large societal level, is important to our happiness
Connecting with people, both on a one-on-one basis, and feeling more connected with society as a whole has been show to increase our sense of well being.
We all know the warm feeling we get when we spontaneously reach out and help someone, or a stranger performs a random act of kindness, such as helping you carry your bags, or even offering a smile on a hellish commute.
A study published in the Review of Personality and Social Psychology, showed that helping others increases life satisfaction, provides a sense of meaning, increases feelings of competence, improves our mood and reduces stress and can help distract us from our own troubles.
The UN also point out that while connecting with friends and loved ones our hectic modern lifestyles mean that while we may constantly plan that long overdue catch up without it ever happening.
The key to a happier you ...
1.Be part of something bigger
2.Do things for others
3.Connect with people
4.Take care of your body
5.Notice the world around you
6.Keep learning new things
7.Have goals and things to look forward to
8.Find ways to bounce back
9.Take a positive approach
10.Be comfortable with who you are
Being connected to something bigger, whether it's society or something spiritual, has also been found to be a common trait of those with an omni-smile as it can make you feel like your life has a purpose - even when you are taking out the rubbish in the rain!
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